98 A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse
closed down the party. However, (24) does not carry the meaning I started a
magazine, and so a phase analysis appears to produce an odd result. A more
reasonable constituent analysis would be that to start a magazine is the object
of the verb (ibid. 171–3). The oddity of the phase analysis for (24) leads
Hunston and Francis to propose that:
Our principle, then, is that two verbs are in phase only when they indicate
that the action realised by the second verb is or is not done.Example (23) is in phase, whereas (24) is not. The grammar of used language
proposed in Brazil (1995) analyses examples (23) and (24) identically and
so misses the fact that the verb close down is the main carrier of information
in (23), whereas neither verb in (24) operates as the main carrier of
information. (23) and (24) are analysed using the conventions of Brazil
(1995) and reprinted below as (25) and (26).
(25) The police managed to close down the party
d N V V' d N
d N PHR-V d N (phase coding)
(26) I wanted to start a magazine
N V V' d NThe phase coding in (25) appears to provide a more accurate and transpar-
ent description in that it highlights that managed to close down represents a
single meaningful selection.
The second piece of evidence which suggests that the unit of selection
may be larger in extent than an orthographic word is found in Brazil’s
own coding of verbal elements. He (1995: 80–9) explores the temporal
relationship between a fi nite and a following non-fi nite verb. He argues
that the V to-inf pattern indicates that the V element may have either undif-
ferentiating reference (speaking time and event time are one and the same)
or differentiating reference (speaking time and event time are not one and
the same). The fi nite verb in (26) has a differentiated time reference
and refers to an event time prior to the speaking time. The non-fi nite verb
time reference of to start is anticipated at the event time and occurs, if at all,
at a later stage. Brazil’s analysis appears eminently satisfactory. However,
application of the same analysis to the V-ing pattern is problematic. Brazil
(1995: 108) states that the fi nite to be verb, realized as am, is, and are, indicates
undifferentiated time reference. The -ing non-fi nite verb has a time reference